Holy Grail, Holy Crap II

TM:  Someone sent me a link to a supposedly haunted doll a few months ago, which I showed to Mme. Blahblatsky and she shrieked “My eyes!  My eyes!”  It seemed she was looking at a picture of the doll in the arms of our favorite ghost hunters, Hans and Franz, and objected to them more than the doll.  I have been reminding ever since, lo these many months, that we have unfinished business here, and it might be good therapy.  So as it’s Halloween, she’s agreed to come back and heap some abuse on the Warwick mountebanks, in honor of the season.

MB:  Lordy.  It has been months.  Okay, almost edging into years.  I got really really peeved after that Fort Delaware debacle last Halloween, and frankly, I don’t think  Ghost Hunters is worth a red cent at this point, but the Talking Mongoose has talked me into continuing.  I’d finished the transcript way back in Ought-8, so all we had to do was – god help us – watch it again and complain.

We left Taps stranded in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, half-way through episode 213 of Ghost Hunters, right after they presented  the thermal reflection of Grant on a metal locker as a ghost.  Grost.  Ghant.    We don’t think they can really cap this, but the Talking Mongoose says they’re going to get something special next.  So let’s see.

The disclaimer from part one still applies – dialogue, Pilgrim, oil drums, blah blah blah.   (And now we think we know the origins of the Montauk monster.)

THE PITCH

DR. ELLIS’ HOUSE

THURSDAY 3:00 PM

The gang has assembled at the van for a pep rally.

Jason: “This home’s supposedly one of the most haunted homes around this area. It was a physician, Dr. Ellis.”

Grant: “Dr. Ellis – he was the guy that supposedly came out of the elevator and went to that room.”

Dustin: “Right.”

Donna: “Oh, really?”

Grant: “This is his house.”

Jason: “Let’s get over there, let’s hear the stories and take it from there one step at a time.”

Grant: “We’ll play it by ear.”

TM:  As opposed to pre-planning hoaxes.  We’re going to be more spontaneous.

MB:  Hoaxes?

TM:  Just kidding.  You know me.

Jason: “All right, guys?”

Steve: “Cool.”

Jason: “Let’s get out of here.”

The black caravan trundles through downtown Eureka Springs. [can a ghost be in 2 places?] Jason, Grant, and Steve approach the door of a Victorian house.

Jason: “Hi, Carroll?”

Carroll Heath, Homeowner: “Gentlemen? Yes.”

Jason: “Hi, I’m Jason from TAPS.”

Carroll: “Jason.”

Grant: “Grant.”

Carroll: “Grant.”

Grant: “This is Steve.”

Steve: “Nice to meet you, Carroll.”

Carroll: “Nice to meet you, gentlemen. Please come in.”

THE INVESTIGATION

DR. ELLIS’ HOUSE

THURSDAY 6:39 PM

Carroll interviews: “I certainly hope that TAPS gets on film our unseen friends. Anything we get on film will be really very wonderful.”

TM:  He doesn’t know about the grost.

MB:  Ghant.

TM:  The grostly ghant.

MB:  This house better not be ghanted, that’s all I can say.

TM:  Er…

MB: What?

TM:  Nothing.

Hell Hath No Fury

In the wake of the debacle which was the annual live Halloween broadcast for Ghost Hunters 2008, from Fort Delaware, in which Grant pitifully faked being accosted by a ghost and told to go away, he has opined that the only people who would stoop to question his veracity are haters of the show and the whole paranormal field.

Au contraire, ma pauvre petite belette.  Only the deeply disappointed would be so outraged, to the point of dissecting the lameness in excruciating, mortifying detail.  To wit – a former Ghost Hunters fan, named formerghfan, has labored mightily to reveal the Truth, in 3D.  It would be quite devastating, if the notion of shame were part of the TAPS world view.  Happily for Hans and Franz, it isn’t.

And there are more former fans rending their garments and crafting sorrowful videos, like this one.  A lengthy and fascinating print vivisection of the episode may be read here.

Mme. B. is off sulking somewhere (although I think she believes the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum juju is directly responsible for this current disgrace) so I feel safe in contradicting her.  Grant Wilson is Marianne Foyster.     Next, he will enter into a bigamous marriage, move to North Dakota, and die in obscurity. Or, not.  I hear he has been throwing coat hangers.

Fort Delusion

We love youtube.

Here’s some Halloween hilarity we missed.  Well, actually – we didn’t miss it at all.  Here it is!

Nice work, moviedan! Especially the grand finale.  We laughed and laughed.  Now Mme. Blahblatsky has a splitting headache.

Halloween Apology

Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose always think it’s Halloween.  So we don’t celebrate much on the real one anymore.  Nevertheless, we feel we must apologize for posting a totally non-ghost Ghost Hunters “ghost” account below.   It feels grinch-like.

But we totally know there are ghosts hanging around.  They just can’t be hunted on television, by idiots.

Here’s a message from Mme. Blahblatsky’s house ghost, written in dust on a dollhouse roof many years ago.  We can’t figure it out, either.  We think that may be the point.

And no, it’s not “dust me.”  Jeezum crow.

Holy Grail, Holy Crap

Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose recarp the Crescent Hotel, episode 213 of the second season of the make-believe reality show Ghost Hunters, in which a couple of Rhode Island plumbers try to improve their fortunes through hornswoggling the ever-gullible public, which is us.

MB:  Are us?

TM:  Silly silly Joe the Plumber, trying to make a living plumbing.

MB:  If he were smart, he’d be out pretending to hunt for ghosts with a camera crew.

TM:  It’s  the American dream.

Disclaimer:  Mme: Blahblatsky did not make up any of the quoted dialogue.  She swears.  It all belongs to Pilgrim Films and Television, Inc., who we suspect are putting it in old oil drums and dumping it somewhere south of Block Island.

Narrator: “On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS travels to Arkansas to investigate a hotel with a macabre history. Will the spirit that haunts the morgue reveal itself? And then, Jason challenges a medium to prove his psychic abilities, and the tech team has an eye opening experience.”

TM:  Did you know the narrator is sort of famous? He has a t.v. show in which he does things like work as a hippopotamus keeper, a charcoal maker, an owl vomit collector…

MB:  Hippopotamus keeper – jeepers.  Did he have to get in the water with them? That would be icky.

TM:  I don’t know.  That’s not the point.  He’s making a perfectly good living on his own.

MB:  I would not call wallowing in hippo poop perfectly good.  Oh.  And yet he’s still narrating for this crappy show.

TM:  Dirty Jobs.  He’s obsessed.

MB:  Evidently.  It’s sad, isn’t it?

TM:  Maybe hippo poop is a refreshing change.  Farming maggots might be delightful in comparison to reading drivel dramatically.

MB:  I still think he must cry himself to sleep at night.  But wait – this is the episode with the fabulously creepy ghost on the thermal imaging camera.  Why are we going here now?

TM:  Oh, Mme.

MB:  Oh, no.

TM:  Oh, yes.

MB:  God damn it all to hell.  Will you leave me nothing?

TM: I’m sorry.

During the narrator’s introduction to tonight’s apparent folderol (per the goddamn Talking Mongoose), we see scenes with talk of body-parts storage, full-body apparitions, Grant’s mind blown, an insane something or other happening to Jason at a psychic’s house, and Steve and Dustin finding boogeymen in the woods.

MB:  No boogeymen, either, I suppose.

TM:  Ha.  Ha ha ha ha ha.

Queen Mary Queries

Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose grouse about the highly unsatisfactory TAPS “investigation” of the haunted Queen Mary, per Ghost Hunters episode 211, as recarped in For Sham! Part II.

MB: I’m still trying to understand how this happened. TAPS goes to a public hotel with 365 rooms on the upper decks of this gigantic ship. They set up an independent camera in the “haunted” room, not hooked up to any monitoring system, leave it running, leave the door unlocked…

TM: Heck, for all we know, they left the door open, and put a big sign outside saying “ghost hunt in progress – stop and say hi!”

MB: They leave the door – no – doors – multiple doors unlocked, leave the room totally untended, go off down into the bowels of the ship thousands of feet away to frolic for hours, and then pretend to get all distressed over the camera being messed with by “unknown” people. WHY? That’s what I want to know. I can actually understand why they would want to fake a door opening at the DeVille house and do a fake non-debunking. It was exciting! I bought it. You bought it. Countless  chumps all over bought it. But what good does it do them to fake fakery on the Queen Mary? That’s just whacky.

TM: No, it’s not. It’s perfectly logical. You pointed it out yourself. There they are, in what is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the world, and they leave with footage of fakery. What if the hoax had not occurred?

MB: Then they would have had – uh – FLIR footage of a hot water tank in the engine room, and…  a nice breakfast?

TM: The dreaded PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. Most Haunted had just spent three weeks – three weeks! – investigating the Queen Mary. Low-budget Ghost Hunters had one night, maybe two. They probably didn’t know what the Most Haunted crew got, which would have made them even more paranoid, although maybe Erika Frost told them?

MB: And what did Most Haunted get?

TM: Eh – wet footprints by the empty pool leaving salt deposits, i.e. saltwater.

MB: Cool!

TM: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s hooey.  Never mind that. My point is what is going on in the teeny-tiny pea brains of TAPS’ lead investigators? What are they going to do here to make an impression?

MB: It would have been mortifying for them to find no evidence.

TM: Can you see Jason and Grant swaggering off the Queen Mary and announcing it’s not haunted? After all the other investigations done there? You can’t do a drive-by debunking of the Queen Mary. They are nowhere near that sure of themselves. And one of the reasons they aren’t that sure of themselves is because they cheat. So even though they assume everyone else cheats because they cheat, it also makes them think that everyone else can figure out that they cheat, which is why they are so bloody paranoid about being exposed as cheaters. Which is more veranoia than paranoia, but…

MB: You’re going off on a tangent.

TM: I know. But I was on a roll, and it just hit me why they throw people out of their forums and why they dump inconvenient TAPS family members.

MB: So the guys who are trying to set themselves up as the big American ghost hunters of the 21^st century can’t afford to hang around the Queen Mary waiting for “scientific” evidence, but they’re too embarrassed to leave without something. Therefore…

TM: Bait and switch. Pre-emptive strike. Smoke and mirrors. Divert the attention elsewhere. It doesn’t even matter what the initial intention was, because it worked either way. Let’s say Grant did it, not expecting anyone would figure it out.   Other than, of course, his partner in crime Jason, and at least someone at Pilgrim.

MB: Hoaxing on the Queen Mary must have been a cakewalk compared to hoaxing in the DeVille house.

TM: Then Dave Tango has to go and be all smart-ass, and while they may not have “undebunkable evidence” of a ghost in B-340, now they have Dave heroically rescuing them from being “tricked.”

MB: Don’t you know Steve hated that? And then everyone gets all depressed over being nearly done in by dastardly hoaxers, and it’s such a huge and  smelly red herring that nobody even notices that they didn’t find any ghosts on the Queen Mary, and they don’t have to make fools of themselves by finding nothing, because they did find something.

TM: And they don’t have to say the Queen Mary isn’t haunted, because they had personal experiences, but – so sad – didn’t catch anything on film, sorry. And everyone’s happy.

MB: That’s sick.

TM: Isn’t it great?

MB: No, it is not! I can’t believe anything anymore. What’s left? Anything from the second season on is suspect. What’s left? Race Rock Lighthouse?

TM: Uh, about that…

MB: No. I do not want to know.

TM: Yeah, but…

MB: NOT NOW. I need some time to get used to all this. You know, I didn’t start this blog to be a naysayer. I wanted to do recaps, not recarps.

TM: I know. Poor Mme. Your idols turned out to have feet of clay, only not even real clay, but that kind you make out of cheap white bread and Elmer’s glue, which the weevils then eat.

MB: Oh, shut up. The paranormal field always has and always will be full of fakery. That I thought these idiots were going to be any different is just indicative of my innate chumpiness. Gullible? I still believed in the Easter Bunny when I was nine.

TM: You still believe in the Easter Bunny.

MB: Oh, shut up.

TM: If it’s any consolation, I still think a ghost shoved Frank DiAngelis.

MB: That’s probably because you so want the New Bedford Armory to be haunted.

TM: Not at all. Really. Hey, you know what we could do? We could dowse for answers to all our questions.

MB: You mean I could dowse for answers to all our questions. You couldn’t find water unless you fell into a well.

TM: Just get out the old pendulum and let’s see what it thinks. It’s just as reliable as those TAPS knuckleheads blabbering about Science, Truth and Honesty all the time.

MB: Sigh. You’re not wrong.  Okay. Let’s go.  Pendulum, would you please answer the following?

TM:Who moved the bed covers in B-340 on the Queen Mary on the night of 26 July 2005?

Dave Tango: NO

Grant Wilson NO

Erika Frost: NO

Jason Hawes: YES

Steve Gonsalves: NO

Donna LaCroix: NO

Pilgrim crew: NO

Girls gone wild: NO

TM: Color me surprised! I wouldn’t think Jason would do it, because I think he likes deniability, but hey – the pendulum knows all!

MB: Eh. Next.

TM: Was it a conspiracy?

YES

TM: Is the Queen Mary haunted?

Big YES

MB: Well, this is stupid. Should we continue with this?

Big NO.

TM: Ask it if Sarah Palin is an alien-human hybrid with toxic green blood.

MB: Hunh. Pendulum says big YES.  I think it’s time to take the dogs for a walk.  I need some fresh air.

TM:  I need to go check out that stairwell behind the infamous moving chair.  I kind of like these conspiracies.

MB: I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.  LA LA LA LA LA.

TM:  You can’t keep your hands over your ears forever.

MB:  WHAT???  I CAN’T HEAR YOOOOOUU.

(Next on the Ouija Board -  the Talking Mongoose predicts Mme. Blahblatsky will have an apoplectic fit over some FLIR footage dear to her heart.)

For Sham! TAPS En Vacance II

Continuing on this merry California holiday in the second season of Ghost Hunters, TAPS heads south from the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose to Long Beach, where they are going to do a definitive cursory investigation of the fabled ocean liner Queen Mary.  Somewhere Peter James raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.  R.I.P.

See disclaimer in En Vacance Part I.

Desert landscapes whisk past.

Jason: “During our drive through California, we got to see some of the great places. L.A. (he shrugs) – jeez, that’s bigger than Rhode Island is.”

TM:  Everything’s bigger than Rhode Island.

MB:  The Queen Mary is bigger than Rhode Island.

TM:  The Winchester Mystery House is bigger than Rhode Island.

MB;  I have a dog bed that’s bigger than Rhode Island.

TM:  You have a cat that’s bigger than Rhode Island.

For Sham! TAPS En Vacance

In which the Atlantic Paranormal Society pretends to investigate the Winchester Mystery House, and then, in a tour de force of – something, “debunks” faked “evidence” on the haunted Queen Mary.  Who faked the evidence?  The Talking Mongoose has some ideas.

Now that we chumps at the Ouija Board know to our dissatisfaction that those hucksters of hauntings, peddlers of the paranormal, drummers of duplicity, TAPS, are working both sides of the fence, we’re not going to subject ourselves to the agony of examining episodes like the Bradley Playhouse yawner in depth. Life is too damn short. Mme. Blahblatsky has dogs to walk, and the Talking Mongoose has become enamored of Gordon Ramsay and Sir Alan Sugar. Where we focus our gimlet eyes from now on will depend on pure whim. It’s not like we’re going to run out of episodes anytime soon, as they’re being run off the Pilgrim production line as fast as Krispy Kreme makes doughnuts.

So per Talking Mongoose request, we’re off to California. This is a transcripty recarp of episode 211, the R.M.S. Queen Mary, of the “reality show” in which “Ghost Hunters” pretend to hunt and/or debunk ghosts.

A Second Helping of Gumbo

After rewatching the DeVille house episode (203) of Ghost Hunters, in light of Pam Gates Hoyt’s recent revelations, Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose are both feeling pret-ty silly about being taken in by that door. They don’t like being so thoroughly hoodwinked. They need to vent.

TM: So.

MB: Pft. Charlatans! Mountebanks! TAPS enters the long roll of paranormal frauds in my book. I’m peeved. I am officially disgruntled.

TM: Well, at least it got you out of the tomato patch. Those bloody wankers. You get the tar. I’ll fetch the feathers.

MB: You were right. Way back when, you were right.

TM: To be fair, I thought the door was real, too. We wanted to believe.

MB: No, I mean when you said if they lied about the little stuff, why should we believe them about the big stuff? Nothing they say is credible. Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.

TM: “And the self-righteous shall be laid low and trampled by ducks.”

MB: Huh?

TM: A quote seemed called for, so I made one up. In honor of TAPS. So I told you what Pam said about them filming the attempted door-debunking back in Rhode Island. Did you notice they didn’t even bother to try to get the door swing right when they filmed the fake door?

MB: Idiots.

TM: And there’s a wall right next to the door at a right angle, and there’s a dropped ceiling in the interior room.

MB: We’re idiots. We are idiots. No wonder we never saw Bruce with them as they “examined” the door. They never examined the door, because they didn’t need to, because they faked the whole thing.

TM: Where’s old Bruce in all this? He reacted in just the way they wanted him to.

MB: Oh my god – it was so easy for them to dupe him, because he lives in a goddamn haunted house. That is positively diabolical. The ghost hunters duping the homeowners, in order to spice up their “reality” television show. No wonder Jason and Grant are so suspicious of other people’s claims, because they’re both incorrigible liars, themselves.

TM: I thought we liked the word “fabulist.”

MB: Great big creepy fabulists. Or maybe vile little creepy fabulists.

TM: Flaming-pants fabulists. So while they were filming the door opening and closing, Jason DeVille was being kept outside, Bruce was being kept in the living room, and Pam and Michelle were being herded around by various TAPS people. It must have been a breeze. I mean easy-peasy, not a breeze. I assume some form of string was involved. Did you notice how the door bounced kind of oddly as it reached the end of its swing? I’m guessing someone out of line of the light coming under the door leaned over and opened the door knob, pushed it slightly, let it open a bit, and pulled it back with string attached to the door knob.

MB: Jesus H. Christ. We’re idiots.

TM: If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t found anything on the internets to indicate anyone else noticed either.

MB: It does not make me feel better.

TM: Oh, well. Yeah. We’re idiots. If I hadn’t been salivating over Texas hot wieners in Altoona, I might have noticed they were doing funny editing right from the start. Sidetracked by sausage. LORD GOD ALMIGHTY – GUESS WHO MOVED THE BED COVERS ON THE QUEEN MARY???

MB: What? Who? When? Stop shouting.

TM: Third season! We must go there next, Mme!!! They did it themselves!!!!!!! It’s too perfect – it works if it isn’t discovered, and it works if it is. I don’t know if Dave Tango was a patsy or in on it from the start, but it is sublimely perverse. Grant got to be all outraged that someone was playing a trick on them, when they did it themselves!!! I’m actually starting to feel a teeny-tiny bit of respect for the sheer brazen effrontery of it all.

MB: Wait, wait, wait. God knows, there’s going to be plenty of time for rethinking everything we thought we knew. Let’s stick to the case at hand. So Kristyn Gartland is revealed to be an aspiring actress rather than a total disgrace to female ghost hunters everywhere.

TM: I wonder if she thought of stroking her neck in that scene with Grant herself. Because – actressy foreshadowing!

MB: And Pam says the lamp that Paula got the minus-9 temperature reading was unplugged.

TM: I never understood how Pam picked up a cold spot first before Paula “proved” it was interference from the halogen lamp, plugged or unplugged.

MB: And the great ghost hunt shut down at ten o’clock to avoid film crew overtime. Where else do you suppose this has happened? Why did they even bother to go? What’s the point?

TM: My dear, I know you say you are officially disgruntled, but you have to start realizing the “ghost hunters” of TAPS are not hunting ghosts. Maybe they once were, but they stopped long ago.

MB: The Myrtles slave shack did look in awfully good condition, come to think of it.

TM: I guess all the controversy about the moving lamp there was more than justifiable. It was that weasel Grant.

MB: And, too bad, the scary shadow on the porch was just…

TM: Grant. I’m for blaming it all on the weasel. I told you he was bad.

MB: He’s no worse than Jason, though.

TM: Eh – Leopold/Loeb. Bush/Cheney. What’s the difference?

MB: Harry Price never would have survived the internets.

TM: Surely you’re not comparing the diabolical duo to Harry Price?

MB: Well, no. Grant is no Marianne Foyster. He’s cheesier. And the diabolical duo is surviving the internets nicely, isn’t it?

TM: Yes, but when future generations dig up our documents, which I am saving printed on acid-free paper sealed in a water-tight, fireproof steel box in a bomb-proof metal vault in a secret location, their goose will be cooked.

MB: Something to look forward to, then.

TM: Yes!

MB: At least they ate the gumbo.

TM: There’s that. Although if anyone ever deserved to have a pot of hot gumbo poured over them…

MB: A waste of good gumbo.

TM: Vraiment vrai. Alors, maybe you will think about a return to work now? A plethora of paranormal travesties awaits.

MB: And I still need to find Steve saying “supposably.”

TM: There you go.

MB: But there’s that tomato chutney I need to make…

TM: Oh, first things first. Anyway, I think I have go rewrite all the dang nutshell recarps. Cripes. A pox upon you, Hans and Franz.

Regular Ouija Board transmissions will resume anon. We have Mme. B.’s word.

First, You Make a Roux

Mme. Blahblatsky is still in a stew about the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum episode. I, the Talking Mongoose, am trying to tend the shop in her absence. Fate has kindly bestowed upon me the fascinating Pam of the DeVille “Gumbo” episode (part of the TAPS invasion of Louisiana in the second season of Ghost Hunters, February 2005). Pam was a founder of the Southern Louisiana Ghost Hunters group, whom we were supposed to believe had called up Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, as a member of the TAPS “family,” asking for help regarding the haunted sugar plantation. Well, we’re not idiots, and we knew that wasn’t the way it happened, but we couldn’t figure out the real story until now, because Pam herself has given us the other side.

Go with us now into the roiling depths of the icky TAPS “family” as we get an exclusive interview with Pam Gates Hoyt. Remember that opening and closing door they couldn’t debunk? Oh, dear.

How did TAPS approach you with the idea behind the episode? What did they tell you up front? Did you know they were going to pretend you were asking for help? Did that annoy you?

I was contacted by someone with Pilgrim Productions through my website. I didn’t even know Taps was in town. I gave him my phone number and he called me. He said that they were in New Orleans and would be taping for a week. They had made arrangements to do an investigation of a private residence (they didn’t want to do just public places). I thought it hilarious that they had made arrangements for this residential investigation through one of those phony, money-grubbing fakes in town (she takes buses into cemeteries, dresses all in black and charges money for something tourist could do for free). She was a member of their “Family” and they had never even met her. So, her investigation [fell] through at the last minute and they were clambering to find an investigation at the last minute. I guess they started scanning the net and they came across Michelle and me. No, we did not know they were going to pretend we were asking for help. I would NEVER have asked them for help. And Hell Yeah, it annoyed me. I thought it made me look incapable and I have been involved with the paranormal a lot longer than they have. I started training as a medium from my Cajun Grandmother around three years old.

How did you happen to meet the DeVilles?

They contacted me through our website, referred to us by a friend who had a group in North Louisiana.

When had you first been involved in the DeVille house, and what was the status of your case when TAPS called?

I was originally contacted by Bruce DeVille’s younger brother a couple months prior to the taping. We went out and did an initial investigation. I asked the clients not to tell me anything about what was going on there (something I always did). Michelle did background investigation on the property; she knew more about it than me. After our initial investigation, we were in the process of scheduling a full investigation. We were gathering the proper equipment and making arrangements when TAPS came into the picture.

Had you seen the first season of Ghost Hunters previously? What did you think about TAPS before you actually met them?

Yes, I had seen the first season. Michelle and I did things alone for a long time before deciding to form a group. We used The Myrtles as our training ground. We thought that we wanted to use TAPS as a model for our group as far as having certain people in charge of certain things, such as Case Manager, Tech Manager, etc. And we were looking at the equipment they were using to decide what we liked and didn’t like. What did I think about TAPS? I thought Jason was a total Ass and swore I never would treat people that way.

Exactly how long did it take to do the filming?

Not long enough. We met them at their hotel on the West Bank that afternoon. I was immediately annoyed by the filming and refilming of stupid little things like greeting them, walking out of the hotel to go to the cars and even re-filmed leaving the hotel THREE times. I took an immediate dislike to the Director. He was snotty, condescending and controlling. Look, Cajuns have traditions, just like the Japanese, Chinese and other cultures and this guy was just insulting. I also thought it was extremely disrespectful to me, Michelle and our clients that they (TAPS members and crew) were all hung over from too much Bourbon Street the night before.

Who was in charge of the production? Who made decisions affecting content? You mentioned Kristyn Gartland didn’t really refuse to sit with Bruce. Whose hare-brained idea was that?